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Grey Socialism
A couple of weeks old, but still relevant.From the desk of Paul Belien The Belgian trade unions are going on strike next week against the plan of the government to raise the minimum retirement age to 58 (at present one can retire at 55). In Belgium fewer than 30% of the population between 55 and 64 years of age are in work. The EU average (2003) is 40.2%, with only Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Portugal above 50%. Last month the German voters made a center-right coalition of the Christian-Democrats and the free-market Liberals impossible, thereby thwarting plans to reform the welfare system and make it less generous. In France Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, a dandy without convictions who has never been elected to public office, is becoming popular by depicting his rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, as a dangerous reformer who wants to cut back the welfare state. Like the Belgians and the Germans, the French do not want to give up the âsocial rightsâ to which they feel they are entitled. One and a half centuries ago, John Stuart Mill warned that in a democracy everyone receiving government benefits ought to be disenfranchised, because otherwise people would start abusing their franchise to vote for prolonging and expanding these benefits. It is easy for governments, Mill said, to start distributing free milk in periods of prosperity, but nearly impossible to abolish this free milk distribution when economic circumstances no longer allow it. When Margaret Thatcher did exactly this as Secretary of Education in the early 1970s she was called âThatcher the milk snatcherâ and became highly unpopular. The British electoral system, however, allowed her to come to power a few years later and break the trade unions. With a system of proportional representation as in Belgium, Germany and France it would probably not have been possible. Today Western European politicians are confronted with a generation that has been the most prosperous in history. At the same time they have been the most selfish generation in history. They have consumed the wealth that the previous generation left them, but they have also consumed the resources of the future generation, leaving it a burden of debt. Today the welfare systems are on the brink of collapse, but the selfish generation flatly refuses to give up any of its âsocial rightsâ and wants to continue milking the welfare state, forcing those who come after them to foot the bill. The situation would not have been so bad if the selfish generation had at least replaced itself, but these people have also refused to procreate. The result is an ever growing electorate of elderly men and women versus an ever smaller electorate of young people. Some German and Austrian conservatives have proposed to give parents with young children multiple voting rights, where parents get an additional vote for each child, in order to restore the electoral balance. These proposals have been rejected by the selfish generation. The red socialists of yesteryear have been replaced by the grey socialists of today. Posted by: anonymous5089 2005-10-31 |
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